Plant Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.

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Crepe Myrtle

Crepe myrtle is a small deciduous tree or large shrub beloved for its long-lasting, crinkled summer flower clusters, smooth peeling bark, and brilliant fall color, thriving in hot climates.

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Black Locust

Black locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fragrant white spring flowers and extremely hard, rot-resistant wood. A nitrogen-fixing legume, it is valued for timber and erosion control but can be invasive.

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White Oak

White oak is a majestic, long-lived North American hardwood with rounded leaf lobes and prized, water-tight timber. A keystone forest tree, it can live for centuries and supports a vast web of wildlife.

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Pin Oak

Pin oak is a fast-growing deciduous oak known for its distinctive layered branching, deeply lobed bristle-tipped leaves, and brilliant red fall color, making it a popular street and park tree.

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Green Ash

Green ash is a tough, adaptable deciduous tree once widely planted for shade, with compound leaves and yellow fall color; its survival is now threatened across North America by the emerald ash borer.

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Flowering Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a beloved small ornamental tree whose spring branches are clouded in showy white or pink bracts. It offers four-season interest with summer berries, scarlet fall color, and tiered branching.

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Dawn Redwood

A fast-growing 'living fossil' conifer that drops its feathery needles each fall, once known only from fossils until living trees were discovered in China in the 1940s.

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Magnolia

Magnolias are ancient flowering trees and shrubs prized for their large, fragrant, cup- or star-shaped blooms. They range from evergreen Southern magnolias to deciduous spring-flowering types.

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Mockernut Hickory

Mockernut hickory is a sturdy, slow-growing eastern hickory with fragrant, densely hairy leaves and very thick-shelled nuts. Its strong wood and golden fall color make it a valued forest and shade tree.

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Bur Oak

Bur oak is a massive, long-lived North American oak known for its huge, fringe-capped acorns, deeply furrowed bark and exceptional toughness. Drought- and fire-resistant, it is a stately tree for large landscapes.

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Bishop Pine

Bishop Pine is a hardy two-needle pine of the California and Baja coast, with persistent, prickly cones that often stay closed on the tree for years until fire opens them. It tolerates wind, salt, and poor soils.

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Saucer Magnolia

A deciduous magnolia famous for large, goblet-shaped pink-and-white blooms that open on bare branches in early spring. It is one of the most widely planted flowering trees in temperate gardens.

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Monterey Cypress

Monterey Cypress is a wind-sculpted evergreen conifer native to a tiny stretch of the California coast, famous for the gnarled trees of the Monterey Peninsula. It is widely planted for hedging and shelter in mild climates.

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Bloodgood Japanese Maple

Bloodgood is the classic deep-red Japanese maple, holding its dark burgundy-purple leaf color through summer better than most cultivars before turning crimson in fall. It is an elegant upright specimen tree.

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Tamarack

Tamarack is a hardy North American deciduous conifer of cold bogs and wetlands, turning glowing gold each autumn before shedding its soft needles. It is one of the most cold-tolerant trees in North America.

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Honey Locust

Honey locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fine, fern-like compound leaves casting light dappled shade; wild forms have fierce branching thorns and long twisted seed pods, but thornless cultivars dominate landscaping.

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Southern Live Oak

Southern Live Oak is a massive, spreading evergreen oak of the American Deep South, famous for its broad canopy draped in Spanish moss. It is among the longest-lived and most iconic trees of the region.

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Apache Pine

A southwestern pine of the Sierra Madre and Arizona–New Mexico borderlands, notable for very long, drooping needles and a grass-like seedling stage. Young trees resemble a tuft of grass before the trunk elongates.

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Korean Fir

Korean Fir is a compact, slow-growing conifer famous for producing showy violet-blue upright cones even on young trees. Its short needles show silvery undersides, making it a favorite garden and dwarf-conifer specimen.

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Red Maple

Red maple is one of North America's most widespread and adaptable trees, prized for its brilliant scarlet fall color and early red flowers. It thrives in a remarkable range of soils, from swamps to dry ridges.

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Juniper

A tough, evergreen coniferous shrub (some species small trees) with needle-like or scale-like foliage and blue berry-like cones. Junipers range from low groundcovers to upright forms and thrive in poor, dry soils.

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Goldenseal

A shade-loving woodland perennial with a brilliant yellow root, now threatened by overharvesting from the wild. It is a sensitive plant requiring rich, moist forest conditions.

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Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is a hardy succulent with thick, fleshy leaves arranged in a rosette and filled with a clear inner gel. It is easy to grow on a sunny windowsill and needs very little water.

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Lavender

An aromatic Mediterranean shrub-herb grown for its fragrant purple flower spikes and silvery foliage. Lavender thrives on sun, lean soil, and minimal water.

herb